SEATTLE WA, October 14, 2008: Dexter + Chaney (
www.dexterchaney.com) has significantly enhanced the popular service management capabilities in its Spectrum(R) Construction Software that contractors throughout the United States have employed for years. The company has updated the Work Order and Service Contract modules to provide contractors with more flexible, fully integrated construction management and service management systems in a single package.

Hundreds of contractors have long used Spectrum’s Work Order and Service Contract modules to manage both service work and construction. “The enhancements to the modules will help make those processes work even better for our many existing clients,” said John Chaney, Dexter + Chaney co-founder and president. “We’re very excited that that these updates will make it easier and more profitable for those clients—most of whom have been with us for years—to operate and manage their busy companies.”

The enhancements are included in Spectrum’s recently launched Version 13. Dexter + Chaney has greatly enhanced Spectrum’s overall flexibility with the goal of giving contractors, in Chaney’s words, “the best of both worlds”: a powerful service management system combined with an equally powerful construction management system.

“We believe that Spectrum is the most powerful, integrated software package that handles construction management and service work,” Chaney said. “Spectrum works the way that contractors do, starting from the moment a customer calls with a service request, through dispatch and scheduling, performance of the work, costing, billing, payment and warranty. The integrated system helps the contractor keep a close eye on profitability.”

With the enhanced Work Order module, each work order for an individual customer tracks actual material and labor costs. A work order may be billed more than once—a critical feature for service calls that can last months. Any work order can remain open to track all related expenses, and can be billed as often and as many times as necessary.

The extremely flexible Service Contract module allows the contractor to bill a service contract on any schedule of its choice. The revenue for that contract can be deferred and recognized as needed.

Chaney noted that the enhanced service management capabilities in Spectrum’s Work Order and Service Contract modules resulted directly from requests and suggestions from Dexter + Chaney’s existing clients. “They asked for a more powerful, integrated package that handles both sides of the business,” Chaney said. “That’s what they get in Version 13, thanks to their advice and assistance.”

ABOUT DEXTER + CHANEY
More than 1,000 construction companies throughout the United States use Dexter + Chaney’s Spectrum Construction Software. Spectrum includes 30 integrated modules that handle project management, construction accounting, service management, human resources, document imaging, equipment management, remote connectivity and data sharing tasks. Contractors who use Spectrum report they have improved profitability and have grown their businesses more than 300 percent without adding financial staff.

More than 7,500 total users make use of Spectrum’s Document Imaging software, which addresses a typically painful problem for construction contractors: giving management, office staff and project managers the fast, electronic access they need to important documents like contracts, change orders, time cards, invoices and others.